In a previous post we looked at an unexpected architectural connection with Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, while last Monday we focused on Fritz Lang's Woman in the Moon in connection with Samantha Cristoforetti's Futura mission. Let's continue the space thread today with a note on 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The British Film Institute re-released yesterday the film in the UK (well-timed with the release of the Star Wars: The Force Awakens teaser trailer…) as part of their blockbuster Science Fiction project.
Co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey is universally considered as one of the key films of this visionary genre, but it has also got a wonderful fashion connection. The costume designer behind this movie was indeed Hardy Amies, more famous for being the official designer of Queen Elizabeth II and for dressing other members of the British Royal Family.
While the film captures the spirit of the '60s and of Space Age fashion incarnated in Paris by Pierre Cardin and André Courrèges, Amies also managed to give his designs a timeless edge that set the standards for further sci-fi stories and films.
The couturier did so by focusing on clean and pure lines for both his men and women's costumes rather than going over the top with colours and materials.
Though Amies represented the quintessential Savile Row tailor, he managed to create a supermodern wardrobe not just for the city and the country, but also for the spaceship that consisted in more conservative '60s tweed suits for the executives in the film (no ties though) that were still characterised by sharp tailored silhouettes; futuristic stewardesses uniforms matched with helmet-like headdresses by Royal milliner Freddie Fox and vivid yellow, blue, red spacesuits plus grey coveralls for the astronauts on the space stations.
Amies' sketches for the costumes (rediscovered only a few years ago in the Hardy Amies basement) were also part of the Kubrick exhibition that took place between 2012 and 2013 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).
In that occasion the museum released previously unseen production stills from many Kubrick films, some of them portraying the spaceship crew for 2001: A Space Odyssey, or a lovely space stewardess elegantly posing in a pink suit next to a portable videophone.
The timeless designs behind this film show us that it takes a lot of talent to create a perfect work of art and that it takes a proper designer to make memorable costumes (and not a stylist…see The Hunger Games saga).
Balenciaga's Autumn/Winter 2010-11 collection borrowed quite a few elements from A Space Odyssey, so you can be sure this re-release and will bring once again the film and its stylised vision of outer space on the runways.
In case you're a fashion designer and you're looking for further inspirations related to this film, you can watch the short documentary embedded here entitled "Stanley Kubrick & Hardy Amies: 2001: A Space Odyssey, When Fashion and the Future Collide", that reveals some of the inside stories behind the costumes for this movie.
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